It’s only fitting that Emer Reynolds’ Joyride opens in a bustling Irish bar, because suspending disbelief for this madcap caper definitely requires the kind of open-mindedness that only multiple Guinnesses will provide.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 25, 2023

Tugs at your heartstrings, but you know nothing bad is really going to happen.

| Jan 18, 2023

It might not break any plot molds, and it doesn’t quite come together as neatly as you’d hope by the end, but thanks to Colman’s shining presence, it’s a pleasant journey all the same.

| Original Score: B | Jan 9, 2023

Colman is incapable of delivering anything disingenuous, and she brings much more gravitas to the role than the project calls for.

| Original Score: B- | Dec 27, 2022

It may not come together as smoothly as the best feel-good movies of its kind, but there's an unwieldy charm to Joyride that makes the trip memorable.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 23, 2022

“Joyride,” a grievously schematic blend of odd-couple comedy and life-affirming road movie, traverses the Irish countryside with a small degree of charm and a boatload of blarney.

| Dec 22, 2022

Why would Olivia Colman waste her time with such a pandering project?

| Dec 22, 2022

“Joyride” is a jalopy of a film.

| Dec 21, 2022

There are so many groundbreaking aspects in this madcap movie, but its brio is undermined by credibility problems as high as Carrauntoohil.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 1, 2022

Colman saves the picture, her thorny performance gradually revealing a well of pain.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 31, 2022

Documentarian Emer Reynolds’s first fiction feature is, regrettably, a textbook demonstration of how easily the dogged pursuit of sentimentality can insult those it intends to woo.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 29, 2022

It's a wacky, lark-filled road movie that's "feelgood" to its core. Until it's not.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 29, 2022

Colman and Reynolds’ willingness to go off-road makes the journey worthwhile.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 29, 2022

But if the script can sometimes overpower the stars, the film is good at splicing the laughs with melancholy insights into the hard stuff of parenthood — for all involved.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 28, 2022

There’s nothing Colman can do to slip the clutches of indie tweeness here – she just has to strap in and ride it out.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 28, 2022

Joyride is almost as heartwarming as it wants to be, and Colman and Reid work beautifully together, but it is too emphatic and explicitly symbolic to be fully affecting.

| Jul 27, 2022

No matter how hard the able cast work, this putative heartwarmer can never escape the far-fetched contrivance of its central conceit.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 27, 2022

While it certainly opts for broad strokes, lightweight humour and obvious lessons, what follows after that wacky, unlikely set-up is a considered, if somewhat melodramatic, study of motherhood and family.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 27, 2022